Want your greens from garden to table in few seconds?
October 08, 2016 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

Imagine you decide to make quick dinner after a long tired day, so you just pick your organic greens from your garden, toss some ingredients and a fresh salad is ready on your dining table in minutes! Sounds like a dream in Dubai, isn’t it? But believe me, it’s now possible, growing your own fresh green leafy vegetables without much work, thanks to Italian Food Masters who brought Urban Cultivator to Dubai!

Urban Cultivator is a great indoor gardening system for everyone who love food- fresh and healthy, cooking and experimenting, gardening and farming, living healthy, sustainable, organic, vegan and anyone who cares what is served on the table be it your kitchen table at home or table in your restaurant surrounded by hungry customers!

Urban Cultivator

Healthy, Sustainable, Organic, Fresh Greens

We all want freshest, healthiest and chemical-free greens for us and our kids, but most of the time we end up compromising. The vegetables loose significant percentage of nutrients in transport from the farm it grows to our kitchen. So even if we buy costly organic produce off the shelf coming from all the way to somewhere in Europe, we don’t actually consume healthy nutritious vegetables. Plus lack of organic certification and laws in the local market creates a question of authentic organic produce from local food production systems. So here we get fresh produce with more nutrients but not sure up to what extent it is free from any kind of chemicals?

But Urban cultivator provides solutions to all these problems related to greens in UAE and I am so happy to let you know all about Urban Cultivator either for your home or for your food and beverage business!

Radish Micro Greens grown in Urban Cultivator

What is Urban Cultivator?

Residential Urban Cultivator

Urban Cultivator is a closed loop self-watering, Hydroponics system. The commercial unit is fully automated. To install this unit all you need is water tap connection and electrical connection. The food grown in Urban Cultivator is completely organic by using Urban Cultivator’s wide range of organic seeds and organic liquid nutrients to add in water while growing micro greens. No chemicals or sprays are used in Urban Cultivator.

Urban cultivator is not just easy to main ten but it is significantly energy efficient and is the water-efficient system.

Residential Urban Cultivator

Urban Cultivator comes in two sizes Residential Unit and Commercial Unit. You can grow organic vegetables, herbs, and micro-greens or micro-herbs in these units. Micro-greens not only take less time to grow when compared to their mature counterparts but are denser in nutritional content. Microgreens contain 100 times more enzymes than fresh fruits and vegetables as well as great source of both fatty acids and fiber!

Once you plant seeds in trays or by using seed sheets, within 7 to 10 days your micro-greens are ready. The Urban Cultivator’s pre-programmed control center self-regulates water, light, and humidity levels inside the unit. Planting takes only a few minutes and you need to do a little weekly maintenance, so with minimal efforts, you can get maximum results.

Control panel on Urban Cultivator

Benefits of Urban Cultivators

Most importantly, you can grow greens in Urban Cultivator year round without worrying season and heat of UAE’s summer!

Our body’s healthy pH is 7.35, or slightly alkaline, yet most of the foods and beverages consumed are overly acidic (e.g. meat, soda, processed foods, etc.). Adding more alkaline-forming foods like those grown in the Urban Cultivator can help you combat inflammation, reduce stress, and protect bone health.

Now you won’t be surprised if I tell you Martha Stewart fell in love with Urban Cultivator so much that she has one residential unit at her home and a commercial unit in her office. This is one of a kind indoor gardening appliance and is a blessing for places like the middle east. By using Urban cultivator at home, you can even involve your kids in gardening and cooking and I am sure they will love to help you!

Who can use Urban Cultivator?

Used in Restaurant

It is a great product for any food and beverage operators like hotels and restaurants, juice bars. By investing in Urban Cultivator you not just offer fresh organic farm to table food to your customers but you are even joining sustainable food movement and reducing significant carbon footprint involved in procuring micro-greens from some place outside.

This unit will help you to become self sufficient and sustainable and you have an opportunity of making available to your customers, healthy flats of micro-greens grown in-house to take them home with them.

Urban Cultivator for Juice Bars

One Urban Cultivator Commercial can grow 16 flats and is able to yield one to two flats per day. The average wholesale price of wheat grass and pea shoots is AED 120 per flat. Using 1 flat per day you get AED 3.200 per month in savings. Similarly, you can achieve significant saving by planting classic herbs like basil, tarragon, oregano and micro-greens like shiso, broccoli, radish, and lettuces; not to forget fresh flavors will enhance the overall taste of the dish you offer to your customers!

The convenience and availability of fresh, organic, healthy greens available through out the year makes Urban Cultivator residential unit a great choice for any home! I think by using the stylish design of residential units, developers can use them in new buildings and stamp their uniqueness and sustainability commitments loud and clear!

Google headquarters in Dubai has installed Urban Cultivator

But this is not all, this great product can be very useful for offices and corporate catering. This will not just strengthen your corporate social responsibility by making fresh organic greens available to your employees but this will boost the wellness of your employees and in turn, will increase the efficiency of work output from your employees! Google headquarters in Dubai has set an example by installing Commercial Urban Cultivator at their office. Who wouldn’t want to work in a office, where employer cares so much and promotes healthy eating habits?

Urban Cultivator for Educational Purpose

Lastly, I would love to highlight my favorite application of Urban Cultivator in the education system. This product will be a great addition to any school gardens in UAE, specially most of schools can have outdoor gardens only during 4-5 months of good weather. But with this, schools can teach their students about how food grows and gardening principals year round through hand on activities. This is also a great tool to teach students sustainable and organic food ideas and technologies like hydroponics. The produce of school based urban cultivator can be used at in house school catering and students can enjoy fresh and healthier food, which can significantly impact on their well being and achieving better scores!

My Experience of using Micro greens from Urban Cultivator

When Italian Food Masters introduced me to their Urban Cultivator unit, I was completely stunned. I would call the experience of picking or cutting of fresh micro greens from urban cultivator trays as aroma therapy experience! Imagine the smell of fresh greens like to smell them only on farms! My son enjoyed the experience even more than me! And the biggest joy as a mother was when my son ate greens from salad without any of nagging from me! Frankly, I never prepared a salad with freshly picked greens, so my radish salad was highly appreciated at home and was finished within minutes!

I also made a smoothie using sweet basil micro-greens, carrots and apples and it was yum!

With this dish, I got a praise from my husband, ‘This is better than any fine dinning!’ Frankly secret is very simple, just freshly picked chives!

Smoothie using Micro greens of sweet basil

I tried these micro greens in many ways for example in sandwiches, in eggs. You can use micro greens for anything and everything it depends on your creativity. The popular choices are pizzas, tacos, sushi, cocktails! My experience of using micro-greens is a feast for all senses the taste, the smell, the look of the plate and even brain, if it counts; knowing these are fresh, organic and sustainable!

My verdict, this Eco-product is a great sustainable food solution for UAE!

Salad using Micro greens of radish

More about Italian Food Masters

Mr. Corrado Chiarentin of Italian Food Masters

Italian Food Masters are not just exclusive UAE and GCC dealer of Urban Cultivator they are passionate about the new movement of growing your own organic food! They supply all necessary equipment, seeds, soil, accessories and also provide training with a broad range of after-sales services and support to ensure time efficient problem solving by their expert trained team.

You can visit their showroom in DIP and see for yourself a fully functioning Urban Cultivator always growing variety of micro greens and even taste the produce right there!

To learn more about the Italian Food Masters visit their website and blog. You can also follow them on twitter and Facebook.